Really! Nothing Is ‘Real’

Another example of the ‘neo-snake-oil salesmen’ peddling you trendy pabulum and neo-Babylon confusion. My current project Mathesis Universalis http://mathesis-universalis.com will bring an end to this menagerie of nonsense and subtle programming.

I could write a book on this.
Don’t believe everything put forward in this… set of perspectives. This is a work in process so stay tuned… updates are coming very shortly.

I’m happy that he allows for more than 5 senses as this is a common error made by science and philosophy up to this time. I’ve taken issue with it elsewhere numerous times. Also I’m pleased that he is allowing for Neuroplasticity (Dr. Jeffrey M. Schwartz http://www.jeffreymschwartz.com/ has been leading this new model for over 10 years.)

Up to @04:27 I take issue with two important assumptions he makes:
1) That sensory information is the only way we ‘register’ reality.
2) He is a physicalist pure through. If he can’t measure and quantify it, then it doesn’t exist for him… This leads to what is known as causal ambiguity (among other things).http://psychologydictionary.org/causal-ambiguity/

@04:57– He says that memory is stored all over the brain. This is incorrect. The effects of the phenomena of memory are manifested in various areas of the brain. There is no sufficient and necessary proof that memory is stored there! They PRESUME it to be stored there, because they can not allow or imagine anything non-physical being able to store any kind of knowledge.

@05:09– “How many memories can you fit inside your head? What is the storage capacity of the human brain?” he asks.

In addition to the presumption that memories are stored there, he then ignores the capacity of other areas of the body to imprint the effects of memory: the digestive tract, the endocrine and immune ‘systems’,… even to cell membranes (in cases of addiction, for example)!!!

@05:23– “But given the amount of neurons in the human brain involved with memory…” (the first presumption that memories are stored there) “and the number of connections a single neuron can make…” (he’s turning this whole perspective on memory into a numerical problem!) which is reductionism.

@05:27– He then refers to the work of Paul Reber, professor of psychology at Northwestern University who explained his ‘research’ into answering that question. here’s the link. I will break that further stream of presumptions down next.http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-the-memory-capacity/
(the question is asked about middle of the 1st page of the article which contains 2 pages)

Paul Reber makes a joke and then says:“The human brain consists of about one billion neurons. Each neuron forms about 1,000 connections to other neurons, amounting to more than a trillion connections. If each neuron could only help store a single memory, running out of space would be a problem. You might have only a few gigabytes of storage space, similar to the space in an iPod or a USB flash drive.”

“Yet neurons combine so that each one helps with many memories at a time, exponentially increasing the brain’s memory storage capacity to something closer to around 2.5 petabytes (or a million gigabytes). For comparison, if your brain worked like a digital video recorder in a television, 2.5 petabytes would be enough to hold three million hours of TV shows. You would have to leave the TV running continuously for more than 300 years to use up all that storage.”

These presumptions and observations are full of ambiguity and guesswork. Given that we are not reading a thesis on the subject, we can allow him a little slack, but even the conclusions he has arrived at are nothing substantial. More below as he reveals his lack of knowledge next.

“The brain’s exact storage capacity for memories is difficult to calculate. First, we do not know how to measure the size of a memory. Second, certain memories involve more details and thus take up more space; other memories are forgotten and thus free up space. Additionally, some information is just not worth remembering in the first place.”

He not only doesn’t know to measure memories (which he admits), he cannot even tell you what they are precisely! He offers here also no reason for us to believe that memory is reducible to information!

@05:59– With his: “How do you know?” question he begins to question the existence of rocket scientists. He moves to Sun centric ideas (we’ve heard this one before) to show how wrong humanity has been in the past.

He seems to ignore or not be aware of the fact that that many pre-science explorers as far back as ancient Alexandria knew better and had documented this idea as being false. This ‘error’ of humanity reveals more about dogma of a church/religion/tradition than of humanity/reality as it truly is.

@06:29– “Do we… or will we ever know true reality?” is for him the next question to ask and then offers us to accept the possibility that we may only know what is approximately true.

@06:37“Discovering more and more useful theories every day, but never actually reaching true objective actual reality.”

This question is based upon so much imprecision, ignorance, and arrogance that it isn’t even useful!

First of all: we cannot know “true objective actual reality” in all of its ‘essence’, because we must form a perspective around that which we observe in order to ‘see’ anything meaningful. As soon as a perspective comes into ‘being’, we lose objectivity. (ignorance, assumption)

He doesn’t define what ‘reality’ for him is. (imprecision)

He doesn’t explain what the difference between ‘true’ and ‘actual’ might be. (imprecision, assumption)

Theories are NOT discovered, rather created (implicit arrogance). They can only be discovered if they were already known/formulated at some time.

Also; theories do not stand on their own; rather, they depend upon continued affirmation by being questioned for as long as they exist. We DO NOT store knowledge in our answers; rather, in our questions.

All of which cannot be true as any revived coma patient can confirm. There are other phenomena of our experience that directly contradict this line of thinking. Take for example the case of Phineas Gage:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage

His perceptions of the world around him were drastically altered causing him to re-assess his new ways of looking at the world and knowing them to be false! There are many levels of depth to explore out of that single phenomenon that would require a separate paper to investigate.

Really! Nothing is ‘Real’ Part 3
@07:04 He says: “Your mind is all you have.”

“Even if you use instruments… like a telescope, or particle accelerators,…” (he must also mean my eyes, ears, hands,… too, right?)

So, I’m a brain using tools which may not even be real to decide what’s real? Aren’t we over thinking this a bit? (More about this in a moment.)

@07:13- “The final stop for all that information is ultimately… you. You are alone in your own brain.”

First of all I’m not just my mind. I have feelings too. My body is also an intrinsic part of who I think I am as my feelings are.

What about my thoughts? Am I really sure that they are me? If I continue in this vein, I’m not going to exist at all or at best; ‘dislodge’ myself from every ‘signpost’ and ‘fastening’ in my existence! (deconstruction)

What about that part of me doing the discerning/observing of my feelings and my thoughts? Is that really me?

What about that information he talked about above that I’m receiving in my… brain? Is that real?

He’s attempting to reduce all of who and what we are to signals and sensory inputs to ‘measure’ them. This is known as Reductionism and Physicalism. Furthermore the argument is performing a ‘self-destruct’ upon itself.

@06:57 His facial expressions distract me from the question he starts to pose @06:47 as they begin to ‘crescendo’ into a ‘climax’ at @07:03 where he says “No.”

I’m forced to return and pay closer attention to his words: “Can science or reason ever prove convincingly” (as though proof is not convincing?) “that your friends, and YouTube videos, and your fingers actually exist beyond your mind? That you just don’t live in the Matrix? No.”

Science cannot prove anything and reason is often inadequate to explain anything.
1) Science is not capable of proving the non-existence of anything, for one.

2) Science operates primarily on a special kind of reasoning called Induction. It avails itself of other kinds of reasoning, if possible:http://changingminds.org/disciplines/argument/types_reasoning/types_reasoning.htm
However ALL knowledge so obtained is ALWAYS contingent. One cannot know anything inductively with absolute certainty. The methods of reason that science avails itself of can only tell us what is probably true. Therefore: even though science can provide a high degree of confidence based upon evidence, it cannot be provide us with certainty in any absolute way.

3) The kinds of reasoning science avails itself of is also incapable of gaining access to all of what is in our universe. Nonrational, transrational, pre-rational, contradiction, intuition, inflection,… all are just as ‘real’ as any other kind of thinking and which remain to be ignored by mainstream’s (corporate owned science) staunch aversion to anything they cannot measure and quantify.

4) Proof is only possible by creating axioms that define a small portion of our universe. Today’s mathematics and science are beginning to allow statistical ‘proof’ (e.g. Higg’s Boson or Theorems), but that doesn’t prove anything!https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_proof

5) Only ontological framing of problems are made in science (hence the demand to measure and quantify). The universe is NOT required to yield itself in only those terms. There are epistemological framing that this video is supposed to know about and explain, yet falls short of doing so for this reason.

6) The kinds of questions we pose, whether we like it or not, influence the kinds of answers we receive. If you ask a rational question, you get a rational answer back… all else which may be available is only returned when the kind of question is altered in some way.

[Continued…]

His popping up into the camera with each new scene is disturbing and annoying although I’m trying to suppose he wants to add movement or perhaps a form of humour to his delivery… ﻿